Christophe Bec

(b. 24 August 1969, France)

Sanctuaire

Christophe Bec was born in Rodez in the south of France, but spent the first months of his life in Morocco, because of his parents' work. Attracted to comics from early childhood, Bec began his comics career by producing fanzines and a comic album published by a local publisher. His Esquisse fanzine was nominated for best fanzine at the 1989 comics festival in Angoulême. He joined the Comics School of Angoulême in the following year.

Princesse Rouge

Together with fellow students Éric Hübsch, Raphaël Vaillant and Stéphane Servain, he created the historical album 'La Bête du Gévaudan'. Bec began his association with publisher Soleil in 1992. His first work for Soleil was 'Dragan', a comic book from a script by Eric Corbeyran (1993). This was followed by 'Princesse Rouge' , a series of two books, made together with Simon Rocca in 1995. His first big series was 'Zéro Absolu', that he created with Richard Marazano between 1997 and 1999.

Hôtel Particulier

Bec has worked with scriptwriter Stéphane Betbeder on the psychological thriller 'Hôtel Particulier' at Soleil in 2000). It was reprinted as 'Anna' by La boîte à bulles in 2004. In 2001 Bec joined publisher Les Humanoïdes Associés to create the trilogy 'Sanctuaire' with Xavier Dorison. The series was a big hit, and it has been published in the USA by DC Comics under the title 'Sanctum'.

Bec began the apocalyptic western 'Le Temps des Loups' at Les Humanoïdes in 2006. For the second volume in 2008, he was assisted by the artist Luca Raimondo and colorist Nicolas Bastide. He worked with Stéphane Betbeder again on the script of the series 'Bunker' for the publisher Dupuis. Bec drew the first volume himself, but then handed this task to Nicola Genzianella in 2008.

Zéro Absolu

By 2004 Bec had started writing scenarios for other comic artists, starting with the series 'Carême' for Paolo Mottura. In 2007 he teamed up with artist Stefano Raffaele to create the horror comic 'Pandemonium', based on the Waverly Hills Sanatorium legend, at Les Humanoïdes, as well as 'Sarah' at Dupuis in the following year and 'Under' at Le Lombard in 2010. For Éric Henninot he writes the ecological thriller 'Carthago' from 2007, and he participated in the script of the first volume in the series 'Le Casse' in 2009 (art Dylan Teague). He also worked with Italian artist Alessandro Bocci for the book 'Fontainebleau' in 2008.

In 2008 he started 'Prométhée' at Soleil, a series for which he does both script and artwork. He handed over the artwork of the series to other artists from the third book in 2010. He used his fascination for the giant Robert Wadlow (1918-1940) for the one shot comic 'Wadlow, la trop courte destinée de l'homme le plus grand du monde', drawn by Nicolas Sure and published by Les Quadrants. In 2013 he started 'Death Mountains', a western series drawn by Daniel Brecht and published by Casterman.